More Than You Know
by weirdgirl42
Summary: 4th in the "Be There" series. Read others first. Colonel Young just doesn't get it, and a crisis sends him over the edge. Rush/Chloe SECOND CHAPTER ADDED
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I don't own anyone on this show, and if I owned Rush I'd give him to ShortyMcGee. _

_Author's Note: This is the most inspired I've been to write in a while. Thanks to all of you who've been reading my Rush/Chloe series. This is the fourth installment in that series._

**More Than You Know**

Young had the sense of déjà vu as he walked into the small storage room that had been become Rush's de-facto office. The doctor was sitting at his desk methodically carving chess pieces. One side of the board was completed and Rush was working on the queen piece for the other side.

"What are you doing in here?" Young asked.

"I would think that's fairly obvious Colonel," Rush replied, his eyes never leaving the object in his hands.

Young could feel the anger boiling up inside him. An hour ago Chloe had been brought, bleeding profusely, to the medical bay. She had been helping gather food from the planet whose orbit they had just left. She had climbed a little ways up a tree to try and reach the apple-like fruit that grew there when she'd slipped and fallen on the splintered remains of a downed tree. One of the shards had punctured her leg. They had immediately used the stones to get a surgeon on board. Dr. Andrews was currently working to remove the wood and prevent Chloe from bleeding to death.

Right after Chloe had been brought in, Rush had run into the make-shift operating room. Young may not be a genius but even he recognized the panic on the other man's face. Chloe had already passed out by the time Rush had arrived so he spoke to TJ and Greer, no doubt demanding to know what had happened. When Dr. Andrews arrived, Young watched in anger as Rush abruptly left the room.

Now, nearly twenty minutes later, Rush seemed to show no remorse about leaving. Young could not for the life of him imagine how a person could justify leaving the side of someone you care about when they were hurt so badly.

"I thought I'd come and tell you that the surgery seems to be going well."

Rush paused in his carving and Young was too angry to notice that the doctor's hands were shaking. "Good," Rush replied after a while. "Was there anything else?"

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

Rush looked up, his face as blank as it always was around Young.

His seeming indifference just served to anger Young more. "Look, I'd like to pretend that day outside the shuttle never happened. I'd like to ignore all the rumors and stories that have been floating around the ship for the last few weeks and pretend that you and Chloe aren't in some kind of relationship. But I can't. So I'll ask again, what the hell is wrong with you?"

"Colonel…"

"She's lying on a table drugged up with venom being operated on while we fly around faster than the speed of light. I know we're not currently being attacked by aliens but I seem to remember when you were in a similar situation, she was not only there but she offered to be the body the doctor used. So help me to understand why you're sitting here playing with your toys instead of there, being with her?"

Rush closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. When he opened them again they were icy. "Have you ever lost someone you cared about while being completely unable to help?"

"I've watched a lot of people die, good people."

Rush shook his head and went back to carving. "That's not what I meant. And you know it. Which means you never have. And so you'll never understand."

Young clenched his fists. He knew if he stayed in the room any longer he'd do some violent towards the man sitting before him. So he turned and walked away.

XXXXXXXXXX

Three hours later Greer came into the mess and told Young that Chloe had pulled through the surgery, was awake, and Dr. Andrews thought she would be fine. Young dismissed the sergeant and made his way to the infirmary. As he rounded the last corner he paused when he saw Rush talking quietly with TJ outside the door. He watched as TJ nodded and placed a hand on Rush's shoulder before allowing the man to pass her and walk into the room.

Once he was fairly certain Rush would be out of earshot Young walked up to TJ. "I wouldn't have let him in there after that stunt he pulled." The look of agreement he expected never came. Instead TJ gave him a scowl and Young felt that he had done something unforgivably wrong. It was a feeling he had been getting around TJ a lot recently.

"I forget that sometimes you forget to think before you speak." Before Young could reply TJ grabbed the sleeve of his uniform and pulled him towards the open doorway. She held a finger to her lips and tilted her head towards the bed Chloe was occupying. When he saw made him feel both uncomfortable and confused.

Rush had climbed onto the bed next to Chloe. She was on her back and he laid on his side as far away from her injured leg as possible. His forehead was pressed against her temple and Young could see wetness on his cheeks. He realized they were speaking, it was quiet but in the silence of Destiny, Young could still hear.

"Didn't anyone ever teach you how to properly climb a tree?" Rush asked, his accent even heavier than normal.

Chloe half laughed, half grimaced in pain. Rush's brow furrowed with worry and he moved to get off the bed. Chloe held his arms, "Please stay."

"I should get TJ to give you something," he said, brushing the hair away from her face.

"None of the pain meds will help very much," Chloe told him. "And I don't want to go back to sleep yet."

Rush accepted the reasoning and laid back down. He wrapped one arm across her body and she shifted until her head was resting against his other arm. Young could see that Chloe probably wouldn't need more venom in order to fall asleep.

"The fruit we collected is really good," she said.

"It's going to have to taste like twenty year old scotch to be worth all this."

Chloe turned her head to face him. "Wow, I'm worth twenty year old scotch? I'm flattered."

Rush's expression changed. He looked at the young woman in his arms with such tenderness and intensity that Young almost blushed. "You," Rush said, "are worth more than you know. And if you don't stop getting yourself into these foolish situations every time you leave this ship, I'm going to have to lock you in your quarters the next time we drop out of FTL." His words had become nearly frantic by the end of this particular rant.

"Hey," Chloe said, reaching up to stroke his hair and wipe the fresh tears from his face. "It's gonna be okay. I'm fine."

Rush responded by leaning forward and kissing her. As the kiss grew more intense, Young felt TJ tug him away from the door.

"There's nothing he could have done if he'd been here," TJ said. "At best he would have been freaking out and getting in everyone's way. At worst he would have had to watch her die."

"If it had been me," Young argued, unable to completely let go of his anger and righteous indignation, "I would have stayed."

TJ looked at him for a moment. Young could see a war waging behind her eyes. "He did what was best for both of them. And the fact that you can't see that, explains a lot." Without waiting for a response, TJ pushed past him into the infirmary to check on her patient.

Young looked back into the room where Rush had moved off the bed so TJ could examine the dressing on Chloe's leg. The doctor was standing slightly off to the side, but still in Chloe's sightline. His arms were crossed over his chest and his face was a mixture of concern, affection, and maybe something deeper that Young didn't even want to give voice to.

**The End**

_Please review. They'll keep me on this writing kick._


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note: I decided to do one more "someone overhearing Rush and Chloe" part. This part deals with Matt. After this, who knows where the series might go…_

**More Than You Know-Part 2**

Matthew Scott couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes he was bombarded with images he wished he could just forget. He saw the Icarus base exploding, a wide desert with no water, ice caverns, a space dinosaur, Chloe falling out of a tree.

The last image was the most prevalent these days. Which made sense as it had occurred only three days before. He had watched from the top of a hill, unable to help at all, as she stumbled and then fell twenty feet. By the time he and Greer had reached her, the blood was pouring from her leg.

In the dark, quiet corridors of Destiny, Scott closed his eyes against the flashes of blood and Chloe's cries of pain. No matter what had happened between them over the last few months, he still cared for her a great deal. The month they had spent together on that planet had made him believe the rift between them had been healing. He had all but forgiven her for her part in the coup, attributing her actions to some kind of post-traumatic stress from being abducted.

Then they had returned, or been forced to return to Destiny and nothing changed. She slept in her own quarters and interacted with him only in groups. But the coldness was gone, in fact Chloe seemed to be more and more like her old self every day. So Scott held out hope that one day she would just show up outside his door. Those hopes were dashed completely when they had been rescued after being stranded.

Scott ran a hand through his hair as he recalled the sight of Chloe falling into Rush's arms. It was twisted and wrong. For the life of him he couldn't fathom what she saw in that man. The man who had stranded them all on Destiny. The man responsible, at least on some level, for her father's death. The man who was old enough to be her father himself.

Since that day his insomnia had become worse. Chloe's fall had further exacerbated the problem. So he found himself wandering the halls at night, the way he knew Chloe used to after she was rescued from the aliens. Looking around, he realized he had walked in the direction of sick bay. He could see a light on in the room. He knew from TJ's reports that Chloe was still in quite a bit of pain so he figured she was probably having as much trouble sleeping as he was. He also knew that Rush had been in the control room working all day and so he assumed the doctor would now be sleeping.

He had just decided to go in and pay Chloe a visit when he heard a cry of protest. He ran to the doorway, ready to come to her aid when the sight in front of him made him stop in his tracks.

"This is not fair. You said you'd go easy on me." Chloe and Rush were sitting on opposite ends of her bed. Rush was cross legged, Chloe had her injured leg stretched out in front of her and her other leg tucked underneath. Between them sat a chess board. The pieces were recognizable but it was clear by their slight unevenness that they had been carved by hand.

Chloe was staring at the board, her brow furrowed while Rush was sitting back, a small smile on his face. "I was going easy on you," he replied.

"You checkmated me in like twenty moves."

"Sixteen actually."

Chloe looked up at him, "How many moves would it have taken if you hadn't been going easy?"

Scott could tell from the look on Rush's face that the older man was working something out in his head. "Eight or nine," he answered.

Chloe groaned and rested her head back against the pillow. "This is useless."

"Look on the bright side," Rush replied, putting the pieces into a bag and placing it and the board on a nearby surgical stand. "This time you didn't try to use any illegal moves."

"Oh great, it took me three tries before I figured out how the pieces move." Chloe ran a hand over her face and peered at Rush through her fingers.

Rush shrugged. "I never said it was an especially bright, bright side."

Scott was so confused it was bordering on flabbergasted. He had never seen Chloe so relaxed. Not with Eli, not even with himself. And what was even more shocking was the teasing, familiarity Rush was exhibiting towards her.

"Well I think this game's sexist," Chloe said.

"Excuse me?" Rush replied. "How did you happen to come to that particular conclusion."

"Think about it Nick. You've got this queen, who can basically do anything. Go anywhere, move however she wants. And yet, her only job is to protect a king who can't get off his lazy ass to move more than one space at a time."

Scott couldn't decide what was more disturbing; the fact that Chloe had called Rush by his first name, or the fact that Rush was now laughing outright, a sound the Lieutenant had never heard before.

Chloe was grinning, obviously please by the response she had elicited from Rush. Reaching out she took his hand and pulled until he shifted to her end of the bed. Once they were sitting side by side Chloe raised Rush's arm tucked herself against his side. Rush rolled his eyes but wrapped his arm around her shoulders anyway.

"TJ said you were working all day. Have you slept at all?"

"I'm fine," Rush replied. It was the same clipped response he had given multiple times to multiple people, but Scott noticed that it carried none of the irritation it usually did.

"It's not that I don't appreciate you being here every night. But you can't keep this up. You're going to collapse and hit your head on something and then we'll both be stuck in here all day."

"Would that be such a bad thing?" He was looking at her intensely, as though he could look into her mind.

Chloe raised her head and met his gaze. "I guess not." She rested her head against his shoulder. "Except the ship would probably crash or something."

"Eli could handle it," Rush replied, dropping a kiss onto the top of her head.

"I'm going to tell him you said so."

"Please don't."

Chloe laughed. Then Scott saw the expression on her face change. He recognized the darkened look in her eyes but had never seen it paired with such a deviously joyful smile. He wanted to look away but was transfixed by the way she maneuvered her body until she was straddling Rush's lap.

"Chloe…" came Rush's voice, it was half annoyance, half moan.

"You said you were fine. So if you don't need to sleep, then we have to figure out another way to pass the time." She leaned down and kissed his neck. "And there's no way I'm letting you beat me at chess again tonight."

"You're injured," Rush protested. But Scott could tell from the way the doctor's fingers were digging into Chloe's yoga pants-clad thighs that the protest was only barely genuine.

Chloe sat up and cupped his face in her hands. "TJ says I'm a fast healer."

Rush closed the distance between them, kissing her hard. His hands moved to her back while hers helped him shrug out of his vest. When she pulled Rush's shirts over his head, Scott decided it was time to leave.

He walked back to his quarters slowly, trying to process what he had witnessed. His mind played the scene over and over again. That was not the Dr. Rush he knew. It wasn't even the Chloe he knew. And maybe that was what was most difficult for him to accept. Chloe had never been that happy with him.

**The End**


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